EIGHT

MARY ANN ARRIVED at school an hour and a half early. Presently, she was the only one outside, the sun barely peeking through the clouds. Good thing. She was shaking, unkempt. All night she’d sat at her computer, researching werewolves and paranormal abilities, replaying what had happened in the woods through her mind.

Though she’d printed hundreds of pages, she had found nothing substantiated, both subjects treated as fiction. In that fiction, werewolves were able to shift from animal to man, but even then none were reported as having the ability to insert their voices into human minds. But she knew, knew, that wolf had spoken inside her head.

The ability to make a body disappear was known as teleporting, and she also knew Aden had vanished. Knew his body had gone through the wolf’s but hadn’t come out the other side. She hadn’t imagined it. Her terror had been too real, and the feel of the wolf was still burned on her hand.

Was the wolf okay? The question had plagued her all night long, which in turn caused guilt to eat away at her. She should care more about Aden. Was he okay? Where had he gone? Had he returned? Could he return? She’d looked up Dan Reeves’s number but it was unlisted, so she’d almost driven over there. The only thing that had stopped her was the thought of getting Aden in trouble. That, and the fear of voicing what had happened and being told she was delusional.

I’m not crazy, she thought, pacing in front of the black double doors. She was going to confront Aden, demand answers. If he showed up. And if he denied his ability, she’d…what? Her shoulders sagged. She didn’t know what she’d do. Telling her dad—or any adult—would earn her a referral to one of her dad’s coworkers and perhaps medication. She’d known it in the forest, the first time the wolf had spoken to her, and she knew it now. Her friends would laugh at her, perhaps ostracize her.

A dark blue sedan eased into the parking lot, and Mr. White, the principal, emerged, briefcase in hand. He frowned when he saw her, his steps clipped as he approached. He was an older man with thinning hair and wrinkled features. His glasses were thick, as was his silver mustache.

“You’re here early,” he said.

She smiled; the action felt brittle. She’d always liked him because he’d always been kind to her, but she couldn’t feign her usual upbeat mood. “Just wanted to get away from my house to study for today’s chem test,” she lied.

His dark eyes filled with pride. “Want to come in? You can wait in the office.”

“No, thanks.” She’d stand out here all day if she had to, but she wasn’t moving from this spot until Aden arrived. If he arrived, she couldn’t help but add again. Knots formed in her stomach, twisting painfully. “The air out here helps me think.” When had she become such a fraud?

“Well, you’re welcome to come inside if you change your mind. I’ll leave the door unlocked.”

Alone again, she renewed her pacing. Her gaze continually strayed to the line of trees, looking for the wolf. She stomped her foot. No. Not the wolf. Aden. Looking for Aden.

An eternity passed before teachers began arriving. Finally, the students showed up. All but Aden.

Penny’s Mustang swung into the lot, the tires squealing a little. Her friend had no concept of speed laws and why they were important, which was ironic since she was usually late. Several people had to jump out of the way as Penny parked.

Today Penny wore a sapphire dress that matched her eyes. Eyes that were rimmed with red, Mary Ann noticed. Her pale hair was anchored in a ponytail, as though arranging it into the usual neat style would have taken too much energy. Her skin was pallid, her freckles stark.

Mary Ann met her halfway. “What’s wrong?” she asked, concern for her friend momentarily obliterating her worries about the wolf and Aden.

The question earned a strained laugh. “What’s wrong with me? Nothing. Tucker called me last night and this morning, wanting to know if I knew what was wrong with you. Said you’d acted weird after school yesterday. Said he’d called you all evening, but you didn’t answer.”

Tucker was of no importance right now. Especially the new Tucker who hurt people’s feelings and threatened her friends. “Tucker’s just going to have to wait.” She looked past her friend, watching the trees for any sign of life.

Finally, she was rewarded. Shannon cut through, big and beautiful. The entire world seemed to slow down, her skin tightening over her bones. Aden might be close. And it wasn’t disappointment she was feeling, she assured herself. Seeing the wolf should be last on her list of priorities.

“I’ll call you later, okay?” Off she rushed, Penny’s sputtering ringing in her ears. Her backpack slapped against her, the books inside nearly crushing her spine. “Shannon!” she called.

He spotted her and his eyes widened, a startling green against the darkness of his skin. Once again, those eyes reminded her of the wolf’s. Her wolf. Oh my God. Could he be her wolf?

The closer she came, the more he tried to swoop around her. Which wasn’t like her wolf. Frowning, she jumped in front of him, blocking his path.

“Is Aden coming?”

His brows drew together. “W-why do you c-care?”

Her wolf hadn’t stuttered, either. But then, he also hadn’t been using his mouth. God, this was confusing. And weird! Picturing a human morphing into a wolf was not normal.

But was Shannon or wasn’t he?

“I just do,” she finally said. “Is he coming or not?”

“He’s b-behind me.”

He’d reappeared, then. That meant he was alive and well. Her relief was so great, her knees almost buckled. She was grinning as she said, “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

Shannon didn’t respond, but he couldn’t hide the curiosity in his eyes as he finally maneuvered around her and headed into the school. Knowing Aden was out there made waiting that much harder, but she did it, stood there and waited until he came into view. When she saw him, her knees almost buckled again.

That same burning wind stabbed at her chest, there one moment, gone the next, and she would have sworn she’d been cut open, even though she knew otherwise. Before, that might have freaked her out and sent her racing away. Not this time. This time, she wanted answers. Aden was unlike anyone she’d ever met. His eyes changed color in the light, and he was able to disappear in a blink. How was any of that possible?

“Hello, Aden,” she said.

His step faltered when he noticed her. His expression became guarded, his gaze scanning the area behind her as if he expected someone to jump out and grab him. Someone like the wolf? Or an adult? She, too, glanced around. There was no other hint of life, the insects and birds strangely quiet.

“Mary Ann.” There was a bite to his tone he’d never used with her before. He stopped in front of her. “What are you doing here? With me, I mean.”

Whatever had happened to him, he hadn’t changed physically. He was just as tall, just as adorable with his black-dyed hair and swirling eyes. No cuts, no bruises.

“I want to know what happened yesterday,” she said.

He uttered a nervous laugh. “What do you mean? Someone’s dog escaped and scared you. I shooed it away and went home.”

Liar! “That’s not what happened, and you know it.”

“It is,” he insisted. “Your fear has just distorted your memory.”

No. No, no. He wasn’t going to convince her the entire thing had been a mind-trick brought on by the intensity of her emotions. She’d spent too much time replaying the scene through her head last night. Too much time wondering about that wolf.

“Tell me what happened, Aden. Please.”

For a moment, he didn’t speak. Then he sighed. “Just let it go, Mary Ann.”

“No! One thing you’ll learn about me, Aden. I’m stubborn to a fault. You’ll give me the answers I want or I’ll get them another way.” Not that she knew what that other way would be, but still.

“Fine.” His stare was penetrating as he gave her his full attention. “What do you think happened?”

Going to play that game, was he? Let her voice her version of events so he could tailor his own recounting to either fit or discredit hers. Her dad had used a similar technique on her many times, like the day he’d given her the sex talk. Tell me what you know, he’d said, and then blushed when she had.

“Look, I haven’t told anyone what I witnessed.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “And I won’t. It’s our secret, yours and mine. But you have to tell me what’s going on. I’m in the middle of something I’m completely clueless about, seeing things I once thought were impossible.” She was babbling, she knew she was, but couldn’t stop. “I don’t know what to do or how to protect myself. Actually, I don’t know what I need to protect myself from or if I even need to be worried.”

His gaze flicked pointedly to the school. “Maybe now isn’t the best time to discuss this. We’ll be late to first period.”

“Let’s ditch.” She’d never uttered those words before and had never thought to do so. In fact, in the past, when she’d even considered them, she’d gotten sick. Now, all she wanted to do was talk to Aden. Nothing else mattered. “We can go to my house, my dad’s at work. We’ll have privacy for the rest of the day.”

For a moment, his expression was so tortured she had to glance at his nails to make sure pins hadn’t been shoved underneath them. “I can’t,” he said. “If I ditch a single day, I’m—okay, look, I have a confession to make. I do live at the D and M Ranch and if I ditch, I’ll be kicked out. I don’t want to be kicked out. Besides, this is my first day. My teachers are expecting me.”

A dejected breath left her. “Then we won’t ditch. But we will talk.” Please, please, please.

He nodded reluctantly. “Come on. Walk me to school. We’ll talk along the way. Just be careful what you say, okay? You never know who, or what, is lurking nearby.”

Though she wanted to stay right where she was to prevent their conversation from ending before she was ready, she pivoted and they ambled toward the school side by side. Thankfully, they had a while yet until they reached the masses blithely going about their day. As she once had, she thought.

“You don’t have to start at the beginning or anything like that. Just tell me something,” she pleaded.

There was a heavy pause. Another sigh. “What if I told you there was an entire world out there you had no idea existed? A world of—” he gulped “—vampires and werewolves, and people with unexplainable abilities?”

A whole new world, the wolf had told her. “I—I would believe you.” But she didn’t want to. She wanted to deny it. Despite everything she’d witnessed, despite the fact that he was saying exactly what she’d expected him to say, denial was her first instinct. The thought of bloodsuckers and shape-shifters was abhorrent. The people with unexplainable abilities she didn’t yet understand—but she would. She was determined.

“And what if I told you there was a boy who was somehow a magnet for those things, drawing them closer and closer to him? A boy with strange powers of his own?”

She licked her lips. “Can this boy disappear in the blink of an eye?”

He shook his head, a single jerky motion.

“But I saw—”

“Not disappear,” he said, stopping her. “You saw him possess someone else’s body.”

Dear God. Aden could possess other people’s bodies. Just step inside them as if they were an elevator and he needed a ride. She shuddered, fighting the urge to dart away so he couldn’t do such a thing to her.

He’d ground to a halt, she realized, no longer seeing him at her side. She whipped around. He was regarding her with that tortured expression again, this one mixed with fear and dread. He expected her to run screaming from him.

She might have done so, had she continued to think about him possessing her. This was just so much to take in. Too much, probably, for a girl who had always relied on science to explain the unknown. He didn’t deserve that sort of treatment, though. He was giving her what she wanted, what she’d demanded. What he hadn’t—and clearly still didn’t—want to give.

He must live with a constant fear of discovery, afraid of what people would do to him if they knew. Such stress would have destroyed the bravest of men, and that he was standing there, unmoving, expectant, waiting, proved the depth of his strength. That he’d told her anything at all proved the depth of his friendship.

She softened her expression as she closed the distance between them. Beads of sweat glistened from his forehead, a testament to his nervousness. I will not fear him. I will not fear him, she mentally chanted. Without warning him, she wrapped her arms around his waist, giving him the hug she’d wanted to give him since the moment she’d seen him.

At first, he remained stiff, unyielding, then his own arms encircled her tentatively. They stayed like that for several minutes, lost in the moment. As he held her, any lingering qualms she’d harbored vanished. Yesterday he had protected her from the werewolf. He didn’t want to hurt her.

He was the one to pull away, as if he didn’t trust himself to continue. His expression was blank but his eyes…oh, his eyes. They were brown this time. What did the change mean? She had so much to learn about him.

“So tell me. Is possessing bodies all this boy can do?” she asked softly.

Another shake of his head.

So there was more. Surprisingly, the fear did not return. “What else?”

He tangled his fingers through his hair, and a thick black lock tumbled to his forehead. “Mary Ann, what do you think the chances are that this make-believe boy who can do things others can’t has spent most of his life shuffled from one mental institution to another?”

Mental institutions? Poor, sweet Aden. She might be young, but she’d seen how intolerant people could be of those who were different. Look how Tucker had treated Shannon because of his stutter. And a stutter was nothing compared to what Aden could do!

“I think there’s a very good chance, but that wouldn’t make me like him any less.”

He gazed down at his feet, hiding his disbelief. A moment passed. He sighed, grabbed her hand, and spun her around, tugging her toward the school. “How can you accept this so easily?”

“Easily?” She barked out a laugh completely devoid of humor. “I agonized over this all night. Did I—” They were pretending to speak of other people, she reminded herself. “Could a girl actually hear a werewolf speaking inside her head? And if she didn’t, was she crazy? Did she truly see a boy disappear? And if she didn’t, was she crazy? She either had to accept what she’d seen or admit she was, you guessed it, crazy.”

His grip tightened. Warm and strong. Comforting. Comfort she needed as much as he did, she realized.

“What about the wolf?” she asked. “What happened to him?”

“Last time I saw him, he was alive.” There was a wealth of guilt in his tone.

Why the guilt?

“Did he tell you anything?” she asked. “Mention why he was following me?”

“No, and there wasn’t time to ask him. Had there been, though, I don’t think he would have answered me. We weren’t exactly on friendly terms when I left him.”

“He is a boy, though, right?” Goose bumps broke out over her skin as she remembered the husky timbre of his voice inside her head, that warm fur against her skin, those pale green eyes watching her every move. Shivers, not shudders. What’s wrong with me?

“Yes. A very dangerous one. If he returns, stay away from him. He promised to kill me.”

“What? Why?”

Finally they reached the school, and he wasn’t able to answer. She released Aden’s hand when one of her classmates, she didn’t know the guy’s name, spotted them and gaped. She wasn’t embarrassed for people to see her with Aden and think that they were a couple, and she hoped he realized that. If she’d been crushing on him, she would have been proud to be his girlfriend. But she wasn’t his girlfriend; she still thought of him as a brother-type. And the simple fact was, things weren’t settled with Tucker yet.

Tucker. What was she going to do about him?

The last time she’d gone to sleep, she’d seen the world in black and white. A world where a fifteen-year plan had driven her every action. Now, her eyes were open to its vast and vivid colors, to a puzzle she desperately wanted to solve, each minute a surprise she couldn’t possibly plan for. Where did Tucker fit in this new life? Did she want him to fit?

Mary Ann sighed. Looked like she had more than wolves and secret abilities to figure out.

AFTER THEY STOPPED by the office and picked up a map, Mary Ann gave Aden the promised tour of Crossroads High. Their conversation about the supernatural had ended the moment they’d hit the parking lot and they were careful not to resume it, speaking only of the mundane.

Aden was glad for the reprieve, though he knew it would end soon enough. He wasn’t sure what else he’d tell her when the time came. Wasn’t sure what she could handle. What little he had revealed had caused her to pale and shake. He wanted her help with the souls, yes, but…

Could he trust her not to tell anyone? Again, he desperately wanted to, and she claimed that he could. But people, he’d learned at a very young age, often lied. We’ll always love you, but this is for your own good, his mother had told him in a note. A note she’d left for him at that first institution and he’d read years later. His parents had never returned for the son they “loved.” This won’t hurt, doctor after doctor had told him, just before shoving a needle somewhere in his body.

People would say anything to get the reaction they desired. His parents hadn’t wanted him to think poorly of them or their decision. The doctors hadn’t wanted him to fight them.

With Mary Ann, he’d forgotten—or chosen to overlook like the idiot he was—years of lessons learned. The way she’d hugged him…as if he meant something to her, as if they were already family and had to look out for each other. Telling her, though, was the only way to gain her help. If she could help, that is.

“Watch out.” Mary Ann jerked him to the side.

A group of jocks passed, barely missing him. “Sorry. My mind wandered.” And it hadn’t been because of the souls. Unlike yesterday in the forest, when he’d heard them while in proximity to Mary Ann, they were once again dormant. He didn’t understand it, either.

He frowned—and almost slammed into someone else. His mind had wandered again. How long had he been walking through the school’s corridors without really seeing them?

He forced himself to take everything in. The walls were painted black, gold and white—the school colors—and posters that read Go Jaguars decorated each expanse. Kids rushed in every direction. Lockers were opened and slammed shut. Girls laughed and talked while the boys checked them out.

“Football season’s in full swing,” Mary Ann said. “Do you play? I mean, I know Dan used to, so I figured he would have the boys at the ranch train with him.”

“No. I don’t play, and Dan doesn’t have us practice. We have too many chores.” Aden loved watching the game, though, and hated that he couldn’t concentrate long enough to experience it firsthand.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Why?”

“Well, you sounded sad, like you wish you could play but—” Her lips pressed together as she realized why contact sports might not be the best thing for someone who could possess another’s body.

She had no idea that was only part of the problem. “Believe me. I’ll recover.” There were a thousand other things he could worry about. “What will your boyfriend think of you giving me this tour? He didn’t want you to, remember?”

“I don’t want to talk about him.” Before Aden could respond, she added, “Now let me see your schedule.”

Apparently, he wasn’t the only one who knew how to change a subject. He pulled the paper from his pocket and handed it to her.

She ran a finger down the list. “We have two classes together. First and second period.”

“Are you going to let me cheat off your papers?” he teased.

“Maybe I’ll cheat off yours. I might have straight As, but I’ve had to slave for every single one.”

“We should study together.”

“Like we’d really get anything done,” she said with a laugh.

“Wait. We’re supposed to accomplish something? I thought the word study was code for getting together and talking.”

Another laugh. “I wish.”

How normal this felt. And despite everything going on, he realized he was happy.

The wolf wanted to eat him for breakfast—so what. Victoria, the girl he still wanted to kiss with every ounce of his being, would one day drink from him—so what. Someone was going to stab him in the heart—again, so what. He could deal.

No matter what life threw at him next, he could deal.